Mixed covolume method for parabolic problems on triangular grids (Q734891)

Second-order parabolic convection-diffusion problem with homogeneous boundary condition in two space dimension on polygonal domain is investigated. The diffusion matrix \(K(x)\) is symmetric and uniformly positive definite and furthermore its inverse \(K^{-1}(x)\) is Lipschitz. Using a new variable, this problem can be rewritten as a system of first order partial differential equations. In this form the system represents a model of a compressible single phase flow in a reservoir ignoring gravitational effects with unknown pressure and Darcy velocity. A numerical mixed covolume method is presented for solving the proposed problem. The method uses the lowest order Raviart-Thomas mixed finite element space as the trial space. The presented results expand the numerical analysis of this type which uses mainly the rectangular and quadrilateral grids on the case of triangular grids. First, the construction of primal and dual grids is presented and the transfer operator \(\gamma_h\) that maps the trial function space into the test function space with its properties is derived. Then the generalized mixed covolume projection and error analysis for this case is proved. Error estimates for the continuous in-time problem is presented. Finally using backward Euler difference in time error estimates for the fully discrete numerical solution are proved under regularity assumption on the weak solution. The optimal order of convergence for the approximate pressure and velocity in \(L_2\) norm is obtained. Moreover quasi-optimal error estimates for the approximate pressure in \(L_\infty\) norm are proved too.